Avg car cost 1500 in 1948. And a used car was 25?
1500 sounds high. Where do you find this data? It was a 1935 model.
By 1948 Detroit was catching up some on post-war car demand. I bet a 13 year old car wouldn’t be in high demand.
1948 Chevys cost $1200-$1500 new.
I think the average cost of a new Ford or Chevy in 1948 may have been someplace between $1300 and $1500 back in 1948. Car prices shot up immensely after WW II when the government lifted price controls. My dad bought a new Chevrolet in 1939 and the price was around $675. After WW II he was offered $800 for the car and it had gone 70,000 miles. Production of new cars ceased in February of 1942 and didn’t resume until the fall of 1945. There was a pent up demand for cars following WW II and customers waited up to a year for a new car. There was a waiting list. That demand wasn’t filled by 1948. I find it hard to believe that a running 1935 Terraplane could be purchased for $25. In fact, in 1951, a running Model A Ford cost $75.
I think my dad had to pay over $1100 for a used 1947 Dodge in 1950. I think he got $295 for the trade-in allowance for the 1939 Chevrolet which had well over 100,000 miles so the difference was about $800. In fact, I think it took until 1950 for the supply of new cars to exceed the demand.
I had an uncle who bought a new Studebaker Commander in 1948. He didn’t like the Studebaker and sold it in early 1949. He thought he could buy a new replacement car right away. He had to wait three months before a new 1949 Chevrolet became available.
Let me add a postscript: I started attending a country consolidated school as a second grader in the fall of 1948. In the fleet of s dozen school buses, only three were manufactured after WW 2. The bus I rode was manufactured in 1939. It was a Wayne body on a GMC chassis. It didn’t pass state inspection as did several of the other buses. The owner-operators had orders in for new buses, but the companies couldn’t fill the demand. The state let the owner-operators keep using the condemned buses. It wasn’t until the fall of 1951 that the nine prewar buses were replaced with new buses.
I bought a 52 Plymouth in 1961 for $20. Despite popular belief, cars in the old days lasted nowhere as long as todays cars. A lot of cars in the snow belt went to the junk years at 6 or 7 years old. New cars were usually only considered trouble free for three tears, which was a typical trade in period in the early 50s. Flathead Fords typically needed a valve job by 40,000 miles. rings and bearings by 60,000.